Public Records in Massachusetts: Are they really as accessible as they should be?

Massachusetts doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to things like government accountability and transparency, and the state definitely has an infamous history when dealing with access to public records. One of the most notable instances of this was The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team’s 2002 report on the Catholic church sex abuse scandal in Boston. The entire discovery of the scandal more or less began with the withholding of some especially damning records that should have been publicly accessible. This lack of transparency when it comes to access to public records for either the general public or the media was not isolated to the Spotlight Team’s discoveries; in fact, Massachusetts was ranked 40th in the nation in terms of public access to information by the Center for Public Intergrity’s State Integrity Investigation of 2015.

Classmate Rhyia Bibby spoke to Beverly Ford, co-author of the State Integrity Investigation, who explained that while there have been minor improvements in Massachusetts’ public records law since its D+ rating in the 2015 investigation, the state is still not up to par in terms of public access.

“It pretty much stymies reporters from getting information from the statehouse,” Ford said, in reference to former Governor Deval Patrick’s installation of a legislative branch exemption from public records requests.

“There’s this obstructionist movement to prevent us from getting the complete story,” Ford explained. “You can’t monitor the government, you can’t control corruption if you can’t access what’s happening in the statehouse.”

Our Intermediate Reporting class decided to test this out and poke around Boston’s public records once again, but this time we weren’t digging for a story within the records. Instead, we were testing different governmental entities in the Boston area to see whether or not they would sufficiently provide access to documents and records that are in fact considered public. In past instances, student journalists pursuing public records have been asked by governmental agencies to identify themselves before they’re given access to the records they’re seeking. According to Andrew Levrault, of the Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division, this request for personal information by the agencies is actually not a legal or required procedure.

“The law doesn’t cover that,” Levrault said during a phone call with Amaya Williams. “You should be able to request public records anonymously and the department from which you’re requesting must comply with the request.”

Most of the agencies we visited did pass that test, and the majority of our group was able to easily obtain public records during their visit, though there were some obviously common themes when it comes to the procedural happenings surrounding the release of public records.

Most of us, myself included, were asked minimal or no questions about who we were and why we were requesting public records. My experience at the MBTA Transit Police Station was actually quite pleasant; I spoke with Officer Fan at the front desk about obtaining a copy of their most recent police log. He asked me if I had reported an incident, to which I replied no. He then asked me why I wanted the records, and I said, “Well, aren’t they public?” He confirmed that these records were public, asked me how many copies I needed and then handed over the records I’d requested with no further questions asked.

Most of my classmates reported similar experiences. Some of these agencies— specifically the Cambridge, Brookline and Boston Police Departments visited by Elizabeth Torres, Jordan Barron and Ivy Saltsman, respectively— actually store their records electronically, they're available to the general public at all times. A few governmental agencies, such as the Boston City Hall, Somerville Police Department and Brookline Town Hall, did initially request personal information, but were still willing to provide the requested records for individuals who declined to give their information.

Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition spoke with Williams and, in short, explained that while asking for identification is not explicitly required nor prohibited by law, he believes that agencies would likely be acting outside of the law if they were to make identification a requirement.

Nolan Piccola, who visited Somerville Police Department and successfully retrieved public records, spoke with the Department’s records clerk Anne Johnson, who explained their procedure for handling these kinds of requests.

“We don’t have a philosophy,” Johnson said. “We handle them governed by the laws. Period… The goal we have is to serve the general public as best we can.”

While Johnson’s explanation for Somerville Police Department’s ideology on public records is a solid representation for most of the agencies that passed our public records access test, there was still one agency where there were major roadblocks to public records access.

Asher Rappaport paid a visit to Somerville Town Hall to request voting records for two State Representatives, but was told that he could not get a copy of these records without providing his own personal information for the elections department to keep on file. Rappaport was the only student who was unable to request or receive public records out of the nine students who visited different agencies.

After the in-person visit, Rappaport called Somerville’s elections department and was basically told the same thing: it’s office policy to have requestors fill out a form with their personal information. The clerk was unable to explain exactly why that policy was in place, but she surmised that it “probably has something to do with public safety.”

However, Commissioner of the Elections Department Nicholas Salerno, had different sentiments to offer. Rappaport was able to get in touch with him via phone, and he explained the elections department simply asks requesters to fill out the personal information form to the best of their ability in order to receive records. According to Salerno, the form is so the department knows how to contact requesters if they can’t provide the records immediately, which they usually can.

“We’re not trying to get information from you or anyone else,” Salerno said. “We don’t want your information. We don’t want to harass you at all. We just want to keep things orderly.”